Agreed. I read the first couple of paragraphs and thought: 'gearing up for a bad review'. The word 'great' in paragraphs and with a question mark gave the game away early on and then was followed by a complaint that block was on R1. Some of these sites are going to slaughter this game come release and it will be for all the wrong reasons.

The only reply in that article sums it up nicely:

'I'm not experiencing any of your visual qualms with the beta, am I a god of some sort?'

Well he's not wrong about some things like how easy it is to lose track of yourself in the game. But we still haven't seen the absolute final build, and Seth Killian and Superbot have promised that they have made it easier to track opponents. Also, the announcer yells "Super 1/2/3" when you get a super (the latest build proved this), and the visual flair of the HUD has improved to note this.

For some reason, SB has a lot of different builds, which can confuse people.

Here's my question to you: Have YOU played the beta? Just because you "blethered" someone who has played the beta and was not impressed with it doesn't mean the game is sh!t. Heck, that's just 1 person's opinion of the beta. And you said "someone", instead of a "friend", so maybe the guy you asked was a blind SSB fanboy who'll say negative things about this game whenever he/she can. I'm in the beta, and I've had a lot of fun with it, especially on Vita. It was fun talking trash (was surprised no one got offended, and other players just laughed along) with people (was also surprised chat was already activated when the match started, even though I didn't turn on party chat or whatever), just laughing and playing the game for fun.

No. That's why I asked. I just wanted to gauge responses and see what the average consensus is. Everyone on N4G is rather positive over this game and I'm interested to hear if there are any valid criticism to it.

Okay three questions? Sly is ineffective? I heard that they actually had to nerf Sly's attacks to make him even less effective and that people were winning match too much with him. And next question how is this any different then how SSB is with all the flashing, sparks, effects, bright lights and explosions how was SSB any less confusing in a cluster? And lastly if everyone saw the attacks coming then you would never hit any one. If Cole or any other character gave a signal that they were about to attack every time then you would never hit any one because everyone would see it coming. It's up to you to watch their movements and dodge the attack. What do you want a thumbs up or something? When you play ST4 or MVC when they super attack you only have a split second to do something before it hits you. How is this any different? When Fat Princess uses the chicken or Jak turns into Light Jak or Clank starts dropping time bubbles what more do you need to know to get out of the way? Also how do we know there isn't controller customization? How come people don't think of these things? You are supposed to be game journalist and none of them ever considered that as a fighting game you could very well change the configuration of the buttons?

@ MySwordIsHeavenly. Well that is obvious. Not everyone is going to like it. What game does everyone like? But I wish people would come up with better reasons why they don't like it then some of the crap people have been coming up with.

Wow this just isn't going to end is it. Everybody who I've played with in the beta (cross play and private beta), as well as myself, have enjoyed the game the biggest complaint I have is sometimes losing track of my character on the vita version. Oh well I'm def buying the game but I think its safe to say the media will do its part to knock this game all the way and through launch

With a flurry of fast-paced matches involving various (great?) Sony characters

I'll give him that one, though some characters that made the launch roster are big stars this gen, the game just feels a little lackluster imo, from what could have been one of the greatest at launch rosters of playable characters in a fighting franchise to date!, Ape escapes Spike and Killzones Radec seem out of place, they're not the most iconic of Sony characters let's be fair, they should have went instead with FF7's Cloud Strife and RE's Chris Redfeild or better yet Leon S Kennedy imo.

I'm sure someone's gunna argue the numbers, like the cost it would have been to include these characters and such, but DAMN! It would been worth it, now we just get to wait until they decide to sell them to us as over priced DLC I guess.

It has nothing to do with cost. It has to do with negotiating for characters that are not theirs. It is not easy and many times they can't come to an agreement about using them. Superbot themselves said that they wanted to use classic Dante but Capcom insisted that they use new Dante. It is easy for you to say to just drop him and leave a big gap in the roster and go chasing after other characters but you take the chance that they say no too.

Think of it like this. Suppose you say no to Dante while Capcom was offering him and then you go for Cloud, Spyro and Crash and they say they don't want to give them up and you can negotiate for them at all. You can't go back to Capcom because you already refused their offer and now you have a big gap in your roster and less characters.Why do you think Nintendo used their characters that belonged to them and weren't able to get Mega Man, Simon Belmot, Maximo or any other iconic third party and when they did go third party they could only get Snake and Sonic? Because it isn't easy to get them. Superbot even said first parties take work to get and they have to haggle to get them in the game too. It's easy to a gamer looking in to say 'GET EVERYONE WE WANT' But that takes time, resources and hard work.

It must have been hell to even negotiate the twenty they managed to get. You can't just refuse to those who who are willing to negotiate terms sensibly for those who want to be stubborn and/or unreasonable.think about it.If you were in their situation which would you prefer to do? Take the offers of the willing or the massive migraine of the stubborn and unreasonable? It easy for you to say 'get Cloud and Chris' because it's not you doing it. But like so many people forget that they are not Sony's characters and the people who they negotiate with don't HAVE to agree. do you think Activision. Capcom and Square care about nostalgia and what we want?